


Lost Continent of Atlantis

by doomed_spectacles



Series: Spooky Omens: 13 Days of Halloween! [10]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Humor, Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomed_spectacles/pseuds/doomed_spectacles
Summary: Captain Vincent wakes on the deck of the cruise ship Morbilli with a splitting headache. His arm is flung over his head at an angle that makes his wrist and shoulder ache. Around him, his crew is similarly arranged — limbs splayed like the chalk outlines of an unfortunate incident. They groan and rub their heads. The sky, a cheerful blue, seems at odds with the fog in his mind.
Series: Spooky Omens: 13 Days of Halloween! [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978405
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18
Collections: Genuary 2021, Racket’s 13 Days of Halloween





	Lost Continent of Atlantis

**Author's Note:**

> Racket's 13 days of Halloween, day 10: Legends
> 
> The fact that Neil and Terry named their cruise ship "measles" is one of those things that makes you shake your head and groan, then fall even more in love with this silly book.
> 
> Also, when I re-read the page on this in the book it seemed like it was making more of a "capitalism sucks amirite?" joke than came across in the show. Hence, this.

Captain Vincent wakes on the deck of the cruise ship _Morbilli_ with a splitting headache. His arm is flung over his head at an angle that makes his wrist and shoulder ache. Around him, his crew is similarly arranged — limbs splayed like the chalk outlines of an unfortunate incident. They groan and rub their heads. The sky, a cheerful blue, seems at odds with the fog in his mind.

The captain swivels his head, looking for the people in robes he’d been chatting with prior to losing consciousness, but they’re nowhere to be found. His drink, which he’d shared with a charming young woman in a diving helmet, has spilled on his shoes.

He takes a deep breath full of salty air and lets his captain’s instincts take over. No matter the time of day or state of mind, there is always work to be done on a cruise ship. Leaving the passengers on deck to his capable, if surly, ship’s doctor, he returns to the bridge. The _Morbilli_ remains on course, headed SSW to Havana. Early by nine minutes, even. He checks the coordinates, then double-checks. Something feels wrong but he can't put his finger on what, exactly. It feels like a half-remembered dream in the process of fading and a migraine in the process of arriving.

Captain Vincent has the nagging feeling one gets after a night out with the lads — like he really should try to remember who he'd been chatting up, so as to avoid embarrassment later. Why does he keep expecting to see pyramids instead of the flat horizon?

“Right, naptime’s over, ladies and gentlemen!” Captain Vincent strides purposefully through the decks. His crew looks as haggard as they had been the morning after they’d been through Rio during Carnival. Were they all waking from the same dream? He claps shoulders and gives thumbs-ups to bleary-eyed passengers. Keeping up morale is a large part of his job as the captain of a cruise ship. Several recent company memos had reminded him of this very fact and had very pointedly remarked that the ship mostly captained itself these days.

Captain Vincent finds himself in the Card Room. 

A game of quoits is still set up but the room is empty. Over the intercom, his first mate advises passengers to return to their rooms. The captain feels uneasy, like he'd been interrupted in the middle of something but he’s not sure what. He wanders to the front of the room, where a first-place trophy has toppled over and rolled onto the floor. Captain Vincent sets it right side up, then stares at the trophy for a solid thirty seconds, half remembering handing it to someone. He has the very distinct feeling that the most fascinating thing to ever happen to him in his life is right in front of him but he can’t hold onto it.

Back on the bridge, the captain finds nothing amiss. He sits at his chair and looks out at the calm, endless waters of the ocean.

“Everything all right?”

“Mmmhmm.” His first mate replies, his neck craned over his mobile phone.

Captain Vincent doesn’t bother him further. He never quite understood the point of crushing candies, himself.

He checks his captain’s log, not sure exactly what he’s looking for. The computer files show a missing entry from the day before, flagged for the company. He’s sure to be reprimanded for that. Captain Vincent purses his lips and checks his company email. Break times are now to be recorded using a complicated formula for rounding time up or down by the half-minute and recorded in an electronic system fed to a massive computer warehouse somewhere the captain has never been. The company assures him the profit incurred by the new system will be reinvested in the crew, which seems like robbing Peter to pay the company, and in this scenario, he’s Peter. 

Convinced he must be suffering the effects of a hangover coupled with an imagination far more active than necessary or advised for cruise ship captains, Captain Vincent sits back. He’s imagining things. His head hurts — he must’ve been drinking during the quoits championship last night, that’s all. People in robes couldn’t possibly have boarded his ship. He didn’t befriend any beautiful women in diving helmets. Things like that simply didn’t happen to him.

Several hours later, the captain is ready to clock out for the day. He dictates his captain’s log, an entirely mundane entry that will be digitally transferred to the company’s computer system and emailed to his account. He opens his notebook to enter a longhand version, ignoring the look his first mate gives him. Analog technology may be old-fashioned but pen and paper never hurt anybody, that’s what he’s always said. (The company had never agreed.)

Captain Vincent stares at the last entry in his handwritten logbook for several minutes before retiring with it to his cabin.

“Have found Lost Continent of Atlantis. High Priest has just won quoits contest.”

Captain Vincent opens a bottle of vodka and pours himself a drink. He opens his notebook to a new page and sets his pen to it. He writes, determined to capture the images even as they recede from his mind.

_The Legend of Atlantis_

_By David Vincent_

_EXT. CRUISE SHIP MORBILLI (NO WAIT CHANGE THAT WHO NAMES A SHIP AFTER A DISEASE) - DAY_  
_A breeze ruffles the devastatingly handsome Captain’s hair as he stands on the deck. He gazes out on the expanse of seabed that has miraculously risen to the surface. Pyramids and statues dot the landscape. The people are shading their eyes as they gaze on the cruise ship that has run aground on their island, now risen._

Captain Vincent writes until dawn reaches its rosy fingers above his cabin. (Not that he knows or sees it - ship captains aren’t afforded sea-view cabins, those are for paying customers.) His masterpiece complete, he fires off a resignation email to his supervisor. Supervisors, plural — the company’s organizational chart looks more like a tentacled squid than anything approaching a hierarchy and he’s never been quite sure what the phrase “dotted line to” means in regards to who his actual boss is.

 _The Legend of Atlantis: Episode One, A High Priest’s Revenge_ comes out in movie theatres two years later.


End file.
